The Curse of Goodreads

Anyone who has a passion for reading books is familiar with the website Goodreads; if not, your mind is about to be blown. Goodreads is a website dedicated to allowing readers to post honest reviews and rate novels that they have read, rave about future installments and author news together, along with directly contact some of their favorite authors. Goodreads is a haven for book lovers and a joy to explore.

There is, however, a problem with Goodreads. The problem, is exactly why I love it so much. Confused? Let me explain.

As previously stated Goodreads is a website which allows readers to rate their favorite stories, but it also then allows readers to rate their most hated stories, and for anyone who reads, we know just how divided people can be on just one novel.

I personally use Goodreads as a recommendation source each time I am searching for something new to read. I usually will try to go to what my favorite authors just finished reading or maybe something popular I saw on the best-sellers list.

The same thing happens to me every time.

Each time I will go to a novels personalized page and I will see their overall rating, if it’s above a 3.5 I usually will go down to the user ratings and begin to read what others have said about this particular novel. Here is where books come to die. The first three will be astounding reviews, five star ratings and raving readers; I get excited and begin to scroll faster, believing that I’ve finally found another book to read and then BAM! It happens, a disappointing one-star rating slaps me in the face.

Goodreads has such great potential, unfortunately the book community is so divided on interests that it’s difficult to get a concrete feel for any book besides ones as popular as the Harry Potter novels or anything by Stephen King. If you are the type of person who loves to review books, this is the place for you, if you are someone like me who is constantly looking for new recommendations, tread carefully and don’t believe what everyone says. You do get to see fun GIF’s like this one though.

– Lindsey Strom